Bush aims to clean up game

DB excels on special teams but plagued by penalties

Aug. 21, 2009

The Tennessee Titans signed Jarrett Bush in March to a three-year, $4.5 million offer sheet that included a $1 million signing bonus, but Packers General Manager Ted Thompson matched the offer three days later. File/Press-Gazette

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The NFL fined Packers offensive lineman T.J. Lang $7,500 for an illegal clip in last Saturday’s preseason win over Cleveland. A league spokesman confirmed Lang, the rookie fourth-round pick from Eastern Michigan, was docked for “striking his opponent from behind and below the waist.”— Tom Pelissero, tpelisse@greenbaypressgazette.com

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Jarrett Bush knows the penalties have to stop.

The aggressiveness that’s made Bush such a valuable special teams player for the Green Bay Packers the past three seasons also has put him in some compromising positions — and made him a frequent scapegoat for fans who too often hear the referees say his name.

But the Packers’ willingness to dole out a $1 million bonus to retain a player who has fallen out of the defensive rotation shows how much they think of Bush’s special teams ability, and Bush has spent considerable time this offseason figuring out ways to keep the flags from flying.

“Just be careful, but don’t be too careful,” Bush said recently. “It’s kind of in between. It’s kind of gray area-ish. You’ve just got to be more conscious and think out there — ‘Oh, I can’t do this.’”

Bush posted a career-high 17 special-teams tackles last season while playing 375 of 472 special-teams snaps (75.6 percent), the most of any Packers player. But he also was flagged six times, yielding a net loss of 93 yards.

Part of it is as simple as knowing when to say when. If you block a player out of bounds, let him back in. If you have a good jam, release it when the player starts to fall.

“When I’m dominating a guy, I can’t like slam him to the ground — that’s holding, because you’ve got to grab him and pull him down,” Bush said. “I’ve just got to be more conscious of that and not be so aggressive.”

The rest is technique, and Bush worked hard during the offseason to improve in that area. He was a regular at the Packers’ offseason practices, and when minicamp ended in June, he headed to Arizona for an additional 3˝ weeks of training. He boxed at a Scottsdale gym with teammate Charlie Peprah and also spent a week training with Sean Morey, the Pro Bowl special-teamer for the Cardinals, who worked with him on hand-fighting, footwork, hand placement and leverage.

“Last year, Jarrett got credit for some penalties,” special teams coordinator Shawn Slocum said. “That’s something he worked hard on from a technique standpoint — to try to make sure his hands are inside on his blocks and to be positioned in the right place at the moment that he’s got to block. I see an improvement. He’s focused, very focused.”

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All of this came at the tail ending of a surprising offseason in which Bush — who last season played only 23 snaps on defense and fought through a debilitating ankle injury — drew significant interest from three teams as a restricted free agent.

When the Tennessee Titans signed him on March 13 to a three-year, $4.5 million offer sheet that included a $1 million signing bonus, team officials told him there was no way the Packers would match. But Packers General Manager Ted Thompson did match the offer three days later, unwilling to risk losing one of the team’s top three special teams players even after an uneven season.

There also was optimism that Bush was a better fit for Dom Capers’ 3-4 defensive scheme, which relies more heavily on zone coverage. Bush wasn’t ideally suited for the old quarters-match scheme because he’s not a “quick-twitch” athlete with the instincts or natural ability to make snap adjustments in man coverage.

Bush played cornerback in a similar zone scheme in his rookie training camp in 2006 with Carolina under then-coordinator Mike Trgovac, the Packers’ new defensive line coach. So, the Packers worked him most of this offseason at safety, hoping he could pick up the communication at that position and be a utility guy in addition to a core teams player.

“I think he’s a guy that gives us good flexibility in terms of he can play corner, he can play safety, he can play dime in the subpackage,” Capers said. “The more you can do in this league, the better it is, because you know you’re going to run into weeks where you might be down a guy or two and you have to have guys prepared to play more than one position.”

But Bush acknowledges his primary role is special teams, and if he stays healthy and shows he can rein in the aggressiveness that sometimes gets the best of him, he’s a virtual lock to make the roster.

He drew inspiration from meeting Morey, a 33-year-old receiver who has only 11 catches in parts of eight seasons but has made a name as an ace cover man. Bush says he could see himself following Morey’s footsteps to the Pro Bowl this season.

Discipline will play no small role. Last season, Morey was in on 18 special-teams tackles, blocked a punt that led to a game-winning score — and only was flagged once.